Verizon vs Cellular South vs me

I have a Milestone phone (phone detail info below) that i'd like to setup the ability to adhoc for my iPad that i recently purchased. I've been using USB tether on my laptop and then ad-hoc(ing) my laptop and that works fine, but i'd rather not have to lug around my laptop whenever i need a mobile hotspot. For this operation i use PDANet. -FYI if anyone is wondering. I'd use a USB tether to my iPad if it could work but we all know it doesn't work.

I found an app called barnicle wifi tether, and it looks easy enough to use, but it requires my phone to be rooted as with most of these mobile hotspot apps that are available and this is the crux of my problem.

I saw a post about an app called universal androot but I was unable to find it on the droid market, that would be a real helpful program if it's still available or if anyone knows where i can get it now if it got deleted from the market or something.

Now, my milestone is NOT a verizon carrier phone. My Carrier is cellular south, (www.cellularsouth.com) I have no real interest in custom roms or anything, the only thing I'm interested in is rooting my phone for me to be able to use the ad hoc app listed above. My question is that with all these rooting guides that are available here and on other andriod forums none seem to mention if you don't have the verizon phone that it'll work and be able to be restored so if i need to unroot i can do so easily. Does the carrier matter when it comes to rooting the phone and if so, where can i get one for cellular south?

In the future i may want to test out the 2.2 roms, are there any here that will be useful? I'd like to be able to use the flash that motorola promised would work on this phone which obviously does not due to adobe's wonderful idea to make 2.1 obsolited with their flash 10 release...thanks a bunch...(end rant)

Guides to rooting my cellular south phone would be appreciated. I have never rooted a phone before so i'm weary of doing it, however my wife has the exact same model phone as me so I'm thinking that if my phone should end up getting bricked i could probably use hers to restore it in an emergency.